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Tell him from me: "A B C". It's a joke that they're playing on you, isn't it. He gave me ten sous." "Joly, lend me ten sous," said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: "Grantaire, lend me ten sous." This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad. "Thank you, sir," said the urchin. "What is your name?" inquired Laigle. "Navet, Gavroche's friend." "Stay with us," said Laigle.
Gavroche's bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an Esquimaux tent. This trellis-work took the place of curtains. Gavroche moved aside the stones which fastened the net down in front, and the two folds of the net which lapped over each other fell apart. "Down on all fours, brats!" said Gavroche.
The rats, in fact, who swarmed by thousands in the carcass of the elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good story-teller Perrault calls "fresh meat," they had hurled themselves in throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce this new-fangled trap.
That which was Adam's ruin might prove Gavroche's salvation. The garden abutted on a solitary, unpaved lane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting the arrival of houses; the garden was separated from it by a hedge. Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden; he found the lane, he recognized the apple-tree, he verified the fruit-house, he examined the hedge; a hedge means merely one stride.
He has a letter-box at his door. Ah! we'll have famous fun!" At that moment a drop of wax fell on Gavroche's finger, and recalled him to the realities of life. "The deuce!" said he, "there's the wick giving out. Attention! I can't spend more than a sou a month on my lighting. When a body goes to bed, he must sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul de Kock's romances.
The tragic picture which we have undertaken would not be complete, the reader would not see those grand moments of social birth-pangs in a revolutionary birth, which contain convulsion mingled with effort, in their exact and real relief, were we to omit, in the sketch here outlined, an incident full of epic and savage horror which occurred almost immediately after Gavroche's departure.
Gavroche's two guests glanced about them, and the sensation which they experienced was something like that which one would feel if shut up in the great tun of Heidelberg, or, better still, like what Jonah must have felt in the biblical belly of the whale. An entire and gigantic skeleton appeared enveloping them.
And he pushed them towards what we are very glad to be able to call the end of the room. There stood his bed. Gavroche's bed was complete; that is to say, it had a mattress, a blanket, and an alcove with curtains. The mattress was a straw mat, the blanket a rather large strip of gray woollen stuff, very warm and almost new. This is what the alcove consisted of:
Gavroche's adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories: "The nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment."
The urchin's profound remark recalled Montparnasse to calmness and good sense. He appeared to return to better sentiments with regard to Gavroche's lodging. "Of course," said he, "yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?" "Very," said Gavroche. "It's really bully there. There ain't any draughts, as there are under the bridges." "How do you get in?" "Oh, I get in."
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